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tv   The Last Word  MSNBC  December 3, 2012 7:00pm-8:00pm PST

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column for world net daily sharing space with the white secession guy. we have a two-party system in this country. and that is what half of our two-party system is. that is half of what is supposed to be plausible in american politics. rick santorum at world net daily. also, cane fighting. that does it for tonight. we'll see you tomorrow night. now it's time for lawrence o'donnell with the last word. today republicans came up with a plaj injury rised counteroffer to the president's budget proposal and it includes some of the same ideas that sent mitt romney into a forced political retirement that, according to the washington post, he is not enjoying. >> both sides seem to be digging in on a fiscal cliff deal. >> a new week brings new opportunities for gridlock. >> right now it's a stalemate. >> republicans used words like
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stalemate. >> is this a true stalemate? >> i would say we're nowhere. >> going nowhere. >> the path to nowhere. >> you're doing it wrong. >> just 28 days left. >> i think we're going over the cliff. >> it's not a good sign. >> republicans were flabbergasted. >> flabbergasted. >> you can't be serious. >> going know where just 28 days left. >> i feel almost sorry for john boehner. >> does john boehner have control of his caucus? >> will john boehner lead his sdmaukz. >> is he leading his caucus or will his caucus lead him? >> two party two is going to dwarf tea party one. >> this is embarrassing. >> he's the problem. >> he's willing to act like the election never happened. >> we're not getting anywhere. >> we're going over the cliff. >> it's the gop who has been short on specifics. >> i would say we're nowhere, period. we're nowhere. >> the same exact policies. >> this shows that republicans are really chicken hawks. >> you can't be serious.
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>> chicken hawks when it comes to reducing the debt. >> get serious. >> we're not getting anywhere. >> the path to nowhere. >> be prepared for the plunge. >> i would say we're know where know where. >> there's clearly a chance. today, john boehner, eric cantor and paul ryan finally kind of sort of responded to the president's budget proposal, a proposal of their own that they were so unmarried to that they didn't put their names on it. they said the whole thing was erskine bowles idea. they summarized the testimony that the bill clinton chief of staff last year gave about what he thought might kind of be a workable budget deal way back then. because bowles is a democrat, the republicans thought they he could try to pretend that agreeing with a single democrat means that they are actually willing to compromise big time
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even though erskine bowles is a very easy democrat to negotiate with, unlike the actual elected democrats in washington. in other words, erskine bowles is willing to compromise on things or was willing to compromise on things that the democrats are not willing to co comp pro mice on. which means that it's utterly meaningless on your way to try to get a deal with the president of the united states. erskine bowles' proposal included a $600 billion cut in medicare spending which he achieved by raising the medicare eligibility age. so republicans just proposed raising the eligibility age for medicare, a proposal that polls show is supported by a full 30% of the american people and rejected by only 67% of them.
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white house communications director dan fi officer rejected the offer and repeated that any agreement must include some higher income tax rates on top earners. the republican plan would raise tax revenue by not extending the current obama cut in payroll taxes. but the republican plan still refuses to raise the top income tax rates. yesterday, treasury secretary tim geithner made it clear that there can be no deal without higher top tax rates. >> last question, can you promise that we will not go over the cliff? >> no, i can't promise that. that's a decision that lies in the hands of the republicans that are now opposing increases in tax rates. if they recognize the reality that we can't afford to extend those tax rates, then we have a basis for the agreement and that's going to be the responsible thing to do and my judgment is they are going to do it. >> joining me now, ezra klein,
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huffington post, ryan grim. ezra, what do you make of the boehner proposal that was kind of cribbed from erskine bowles? >> two things. one, republicans are terrified about by the polls showing that they are going to immediately get blamed if they are not willing to compromise. the reason you initiate the bowles' plan is you say, look, they are going along with the former chief of staff said. it's important to know that when erskine bowles brought up this idea, it wasn't his plan. he was in testimony and he said to the supercommittee, given what the two sides, you republicans and you democrats have put forth, here's what it would look like. if you actually took the simpson/bowles plan, you wouldn't have $600 billion in tax increases. you'd have 2.6 trillion. and even if you just moved the budget plan up a year, the same
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erskine bowles offered to the super committee that they are using now, for complicated reasons it it would now be worth $950 million in tax increases. so even in the kind of world of the bowles' plan and muchless simpson/bowles plan, this isn't quite right there. >> ryan, do they think that one democrat in a world who is not in office anywhere and theoretically compromising with him even though he says, hey, that's not a workable deal, do they actually think that's a presentable step towards the president? >> clearly they do. you know, democrats have been kind of guilty of the same thing in the past but this is a little extra ridiculous because erskine bowles is not somebody that's just been out of operativeness for a long time. he wasn't in office. he was inoperative, but he also works for morgan stanley right now. it's not like this is some type of a new deal that says, look,
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here's the deal that we've cobbled together with erskine bowles and the fact that he came out and rejected it today is that much more embarrassing to them. they are calling it the bowles' plan and bowles came out and said, i don't support this. >> there's a potentially very important development in the house, nancy pelosi saying that she might move to what they call a discharge position. she said, instead of wasting the public's time, house republicans should allow a vote on the senate-passed middle income tax cuts. democrats are filing a position to force a vote on extending the middle income tax cut on tuesday at noon. ezra, the way the houseworks, of course, it's hard for the minority to get anything to a vote. this is the only way they can, this rarely used discharge petition. how does that look as it develops?
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>> it's a little hard to say right now. usually you don't get to the discharge position because it scares them enough to move it. i've heard some people suggest that boehner would be happy to have that happen because it gets a vote and he doesn't get the blame for it. it happens despite his objections. remember, they didn't filibuster the middle class tax cut extension. you can easily imagine the scenario where this part of it, the middle income tax cuts get taken off the table early. and i believe abc saying that the republicans have developed what they call a doom's day scenario plan in which if we really hit the fiscal cliff and really haven't figured anything out, they just let the democrats have the middle income tax cuts and then we go over the cliff or over the curb, as you would have it, and then we begin in a month or two to hit the debt ceiling and yet now democrats don't have the leverage of the tax cuts.
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i'll be honest with you, lawrence, i have tried and tried and tried to figure out what the political advantage of doing that would be for the republicans. i've had no success figuring out the strategy behind that plan but certainly there are smarter minds than mine over there. maybe they have some idea of where getting the tax cuts done will help them and not the democrats. >> i'm going to read what abc is actually reporting about this. they say, house republicans would allow a vote on extending the bush middle class tax cuts and offer the president nothing more. no extension of the debt ceiling, nothing on unemployment, nothing on closing loopholes, under one variation of this doom's day plan, republicans would vote present on the bill allowing it to pass entirely on democratic votes. and ryan, not only would it pass entirely on democratic votes in that scenario, the republicans would still be holding the debt ceiling as something that the president would have to come
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back to them for after all of that was done. >> that's right. but they'd be rapidly losing credibility. they could, you know, theoretically, you know, force the country into a default by simply refusing to lift the debt ceiling but if they go through the scenario that they lay out and i think that that's an extreme long shot, by that point they would have been so beaten up they wouldn't have the political capital to have the last stand in front of the debt ceiling. they will have been getting rolled for several months in a row. so why all of a -- they don't have the spine right now to stand up for the debt ceiling. you know, they make some gestures towards it but not much of them. so why is it that after getting beaten for a couple of months they would then finally have the ability to thwart it on the debt ceiling? i don't see it happening but as long as this debt ceiling is part of the statute, then it is always going to be something that the country has to worry about and actually the globe has
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to worry about. >> ezra klein and ryan grim, thank you for joining me on the latest twists and turns. coming up, president obama is not going to let the republicans forget that they lost the election because they campaigned to keep taxes low for the top income earners in america. and mitt romney is looking for a new job and republicans are looking for a new leader and democrats might already have their next leader for the next presidential election. and in the rewrite tonight, in praise of bob costas for saying what had to be said about the biggest thing that happened in the world of football this week. that's coming up. [ loud party sounds ] hi, i'm ensure clear... clear, huh? i'm not juice or fancy water. i've got nine grams of protein. that's three times more than me! [ female announcer ] ensure clear. nine grams protein. zero fat. in blueberry/pomegranate and peach.
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relieving the pain quickly. [ traffic passing ] ] ♪ [ music box: lullaby ] [ man on tv, indistinct ] ♪ [ lullaby continues ] [ baby coos ] [ man announcing ] millions are still exposed to the dangers... of secondhand smoke... and some of them can't do anything about it. ♪ [ continues ] [ gasping ] the tea party will revolt until republicans keep tax rates low on the rich. we'll see if he's right about that.
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that's next. and later in the show, you're going to meet the last word viewer who impressed me so much with his online comment about the show that he works here now. that's coming up. zeebox is thep that makes tv even better. if your tv were a space captain, zeebox would be an alien, first officer. just like an officer helps a captain explore the universe, zeebox helps you discover what shows are most popular, where the biggest buzz is, or what the stars are watching now. download zeebox free, and let your tv go where it's never gone before. (announcer) when subaru owners look in the mirror, they see more than themselves. so we celebrate our year-end with the "share the love" event. get a great deal on a new subaru and 250 dollars goes to your choice of five charities. by the end of this, our fifth year, our total can reach almost 25 million dollars. it's a nice reflection on us all. now through january 2nd.
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ask the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on their income over $250,000. the same rate we had when bill clinton was president and our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs. >> that's from a new video by the obama administration designed to get the public on the president's side of this tax fight. the president took to twitter today to answer questions about the fiscal cliff. one person asked whether deductions for homeowners are at risk to which the president responded, breaks for middle class important for families and economy. if top rates don't go up, danger that middle class deductions get hit. signed "bo." yesterday house speaker john boehner said this on fox news. >> listen, nobody want to go over the cliff. that's why the day after the election i tried to speed this process up by making a concession to put revenues on
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the table. it's unfortunate that the white house has spent three weeks doing basically nothing. you know, the president's idea of a negotiation is, roll over and do what i ask. >> and on "meet the press" yesterday grover tried to change america's mind about who to blame if we do go off the cliff. >> tea party 2 is going to dwarf tea party one if obama pushes us off the cliff. let's not pretend who's pushing us offer the cliff. >> but continuing to insist that the president does have the better argument. >> at the end of the day, president obama is selling a very simple message. i want to keep taxes low for middle class americans and i'm worry are in the position of looking as if they don't care about the middle class and just want to keep tax rates low for wealthy americans. >> krystal, it's grover norquist versus the polls, actually, the polls actually tell us -- a new
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cnn poll shows that 45% of americans would blame congressional republicans if no deal is reached and 34% would blame president obama. i don't think grover is going to turn that around. >> no, i don't think grover is going to turn that around and i don't think that he's right that tea party 2 will dwarf tea party 1. >> he is so wrong. >> but i do think that there is true to the fact that there is already a backlash from the ultra right, grassroot tea partyiers that are still out there upset with boehner over his initial position, which is still quite far to the right, as you and ryan talked about in the last segment, doesn't even include any increase in the top tack rates at all. it still focuses on these magic, you know, reductions of loopholes and deductions that we've never heard anyone from mitt romney or anyone else be able to actually describe. >> let's listen to something that tim geithner said, his description of the republican's
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problem. >> they are in kind of in a tough position now and it's going to be -- it's obviously a little hard for them now and they are trying to figure out where they go next and we might need to give them a little time to figure out where they go next. >> when you say that they are in a hard spot, what do you mean? >> well, they are trying to figure out how to find a way to support things that they know they are going to have to do. it's going to be very hard for them. if they are going to tell us what they are willing to do on rates and revenues, that's going to be really hard. again, if they need more time to figure out what they are going to do, what they want to do, that's fine but we don't have that much time though. >> he's saying, we're not going to give in. if you want more time to decide what you are going to do, we're not giving you anything. >> he's very compassionate. >> there was an empathy there. he looks like a therapist saying you have some work that you need to do and you're going to have to figure it out. the other thing he said, of course, also on "meet the press
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press" is, look, tax rates are going to go up for everyone and we're going to have to deal. this desire to take erskine bowles who is not necessarily a household name and trying to claim that his testimony at a given time reflects some great republican compromise is dead on arrival. mr. bowles came out today and he said that the attempt to invoke his testimony was off base and that this republican offer, to the extent it offers anything, is not the simpson/bowles plan, is not the bowles plan. it reminds me of the rap group, 36 mafia. they say, keep my name out of your mouth. it's basically what mr. bowles said to speaker boehner, don't talk about me, don't talk about my plan, go work on your own plan. >> let's listen to another thing grover said yesterday about president obama.
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>> it's the president who is threatening to raise taxes on the middle class if he doesn't stamp his feet and get his way. >> it's so funny to see somebody talk about someone else in full projection mode. >> right. >> that is grover. you know, stomping his feet and getting his way and he's pretending that the president debafs the way he does. >> that's been his entire path to power and he has gotten his way because not only has he stamped his feet to get his way but he's also threatened people. he's done that here by saying that the tea party 2 is going to dwarf tea party 1, that's sending out a message saying, if you support any revenue increases, if you go along with compromise, we're going to get you next time around in your primary. that's what this is all about. it's an intimidation to republicans thinking about actually trying to come to some sort of deal and move forward. >> let's listen to a prediction that lindsey graham made which i think i agree with.
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>> i think we're going over the cliff. it's pretty clear to me they've made a political calculation. >> i'd say right about now he's right about that. that the white house has made the choice, if we don't get exactly what we want before new year's eve, we're going to let this happen. >> yeah, we're going to let it happen. and, look, it's not the end of the world. the question is, do we do a deal in the ninth inning or the tenth inning. >> exact legal. >> nobody who is serious about this is that there would never be a deal. if there was never a deal and we had arbitrary defense tucks and restructuring of our taxes, that would -- >> for a while. >> exactly. but if it's two or three weeks that the republicans want to do for the sake of their own drama and own inability to make of their minds, i think we can handle it. >> i think it will be less than three weeks. i think it will be in the order of seven days maximum. krystal ball, thank you both.
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>> thanks, lawrence. coming up, hillary clinton is running for president, so says an article posted online today at the new yorker. and mitt romney is not enjoying private life according to a washington post report that says mr. and mrs. romney are having a hard time adjusting to losing the election. and your loved one can get exelon patch free for 30 days. if the doctor feels it's right for them. it cannot change how the disease progresses. hospitalization and rarely death have been reported in patients who wore more than one patch at a time. the most common side effects of exelon patch are nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. the likelihood and severity of these side effects may increase as the dose increases. patients may experience loss of appetite or weight. patients who weigh less than 110 pounds may experience more side effects. people at risk for stomach ulcers
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mike huckabee and her herman
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happy holidays. duracell with duralock. trusted everywhere. in the spotlight tonight, the aftermath of election 2012. today when the president of the united states was getting briefed by the cia on every known threat in the world, then meeting with the prime minister, then delivering a speech on armts control at the national defense, mitt romney was rejoining the board of marriott international, a hotel chain that is much better managed than mitt romney's presidential campaign. in an article that should have been titled "mitt romney is human after all," "the washington post" reports today
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that, quote, romney's rapid retreat into seclusion has been marked by repressed emotions, second guessing and perhaps the first time in the over achiever's adult life, sustained boredom. the romney model of don't stop running after your first attempts to get the republican nomination may now be being followed by text kas governor rick perry, who according to politico has been meeting with rig bon nors and is leaving the impression that he is ready to run again. politico has said that governors jindal of louisiana, case sich of ohio and mcdonnell of virginia ventured over to the venetian for separate private meetings while they were at the governors association winter meeting. politico also reports that martin o'malley is meeting with donors in los angeles this week
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and has a fund-raiser scheduled in the washington suburbs and that vice president joe biden has been meeting with his donors. and david wrote, hillary clinton is running for president. he came to that conclusion after attending a forum in washington where hillary clinton was a featured speaker and was introduced by what remnick calls a short, adoring film. the film was like an international endorsement four years in advance of the iowa caucus and the new hampshire primary. >> if you bet on the side of human rights, human dignity, more countries may have the same extraordinary good fortune that we've had. ♪ and when you smile >> someone who knows a thing or
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two about political comebacks, i can tell you i don't think we've heard the last of hillary clinton. ♪ girl you're amazing just the way you are ♪ >> i just have an instinct that the best is yet to come. >> joining me now, "the washington post" and jonathan capeheart. >> come on, these leaving her term as secretary of state. she's arguably been one of the best that we've had in a while. she's loved by clearly lots of people around the world, particularly foreign leaders and so there she is at this forum filled with friends of hers and there's a tribute video for her saying, you know, job well done, you're terrific. just a couple people saying, who knows what is next for her. of course who knows what is next for her because she's a young
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woman who is hopefully going to put her feet up and relax a little bit before entertaining ideas about 2016 when we're still in 2012. >> well, the hillary clinton people that i talked to tell me the decision has been made. it's under way. david remnick is right. phillip, your piece today about romney life after the election does not read like there's much fun in laum world these days. >> well, he's trying to have a little bit of fun. he's been seeing his family. remember, he has 18 children and five grandsons and they have been cycling in and out of that la jolla beach house. he's trying to figure out what to do with his life. it's the first time since college that he hasn't had a plan, a company to run, a campaign to run or a job to fill. so he's trying to figure that out. we saw the first step today with the marriott job. he's also looking at doing some sort of a charitable endeavor or
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a public service component of some kind, although certainly not elected office anymore. >> phillip, your piece says today, by all accounts the past month has been most difficult on romney's wife ann whose friend said that ascending to the white house was their destiny. they say she's been crying in private and trying to get back to riding her horses. jonathan, given the way you saw the character of ann romney unfold during the course of the campaign, what's your reaction to that? >> i wrote about this today. that paragraph was all of the juicy tid bits in phillip's story and great story, phillip, on your story. that was the one that lept out at me. it struck up a familiar tone. we've heard this same tone, this one of presumptiveness, one of -- and i can't think of the word right now.
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but where there are three instances where people will point to where that paragraph, we saw it come before. one was when she had the interview with the iowa radio station where she said to republicans, complaining about her husband, remember she said, stop it, this is hard. you get in the ring if you think it's so easy and america should be so lucky to have someone like her husband mitt to run the country. there was the interview with diane sawyer where when she was asked, what would you say to president obama and michelle obama and she concluded her remarks by saying -- well, first she said, it's mitt's time and then ends her remarks by saying, it's our turn. you know, that is a mind set of someone who thinks that they are sort of owed sitting in the white house as opposed to earning their way into the white house. >> phillip wrecker, please explain to me and the nation how the romneys could have been
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convinced to a certainty that mitt romney was going to win this election. i mean, even if all of the polls showed him in that position, which they didn't, but even if they did, the votes still have to be cast. there is still some suspense in election night. >> well, you know, there was a feeling with the candidate and with his wife ann throughout this campaign that this was the moment, he could fix the economy and the country needed him and there was no way that the country would are reelect president obama, that this was the year for mitt romney to win. they believed that all the way to the end and the last week of the campaign and i was out on the road with him, he had these huge crowds at different events and in fact on election day he did a stop in pittsburgh to go visit his election headquarters there and saw a bunch of people up on a parking ramp right at the airport. they hadn't announced the arrival at the airport.
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they just showed up. they took it as an omen. they thought it was a sign that he was going to win and all the way until the networks called the race on election night that he would be the winner. >> so jonathan, what, then, does that kind of mind do in this situation? i mean, i kind of -- i guess i kind of get the crying. the world makes no sense. >> right. well, the world makes no sense when you live in this bubble where -- just imagine, remember what was happening over at fox news on election night, how they couldn't believe what the rest of the country saw happening and saw it happening for weeks, if not months, this echo chamber that they live in that they are going to win, that their ideas are right, that they are the ones who should be leading the country and the country said otherwise and the world i was looking for was entitled and that's -- i think that's the mind set coming from, you know, the romneys and particularly going back to the paragraph in
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philip's story about ann romney and the sense of entitlement, that the white house is supposed to be theirs, it's mitt's time as opposed to what the country has to say about the matter. >> philip, i think we have every right to expect that mitt romney will fade into the kind of object live john that you fade into after one of these losses. i don't think he even has a chance of being as prominent as bob dole was after he lost in 1986. he had given up his senate seat so had no more jobs in republican politics but he he had a substantial republican career behind him which a lot of people remembered. >> yeah. i mean, the problem for mitt romney now is the party is moving beyond him very quickly. it's only been about four weeks and his ideas are not being discussed in washington. there's not much of any reference to him. the republican leaders who are young and up and coming are talking about how to rebrand and
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rebuild the party and some people close to mitt romney said he doesn't really have much of an interest of being involved in that kind of conversation. >> philip ruker and jonathan capehart, thank you for joining me tonight. >> thanks. coming up, in the rewrite, mike huckabee, herman cain are upset at bob costas who said what had to be said during his football coverage last night.
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from ambition to achievement. and the next great idea could be yours. ♪ herman cain is mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore. but instead of throwing something at the tv he, of course, tweeted, you tune in for a football game and end up listening to bob costas spewing sanctimoniuos because bob costas who is host of football night actually mentioned the biggest thing that happened in football this weekend. it happened saturday morning when jovan belcher shot and
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killed his 22-year-old girlfriend in front of their 3-month-old daughter and belcher's own mother. he then drove to work where he met with his head coach and general manager and thanked them for all they had done for him, then he went out in their parking lot, saw police approaching, and shot himself in the head. football being football and by that, of course, i mean football being big business, the game, and by that i mean the big business must go on and so, of course, the kansas city chiefs played their money making game the next day. the football business was hoping that tv football commentators would ignore the biggest thing that happened in football this weekend. but bob costas could not. >> in the aftermath of the nearly unfathomable events in kansas city, the mindless sports
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cliches was heard yet again. something like this really puts it all in perspective. well, if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf life since we will inevitably hear about the perspective that we regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games. please, those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate there's sense of proportion about sports would seem to have little hope of achieving perspective. you want some actual perspective on this, well, a bit of it comes from the kansas city-based writer jason whitlock with whom i don't always agree who said, we may as well paraphrase from the end of his article. our current gun culture, whitlock wrote, ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy and that more convenience store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more evteenage boys dead.
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they he is as ser bait our flaws and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. in the coming days, jov jovan belcher's action will be analyzed. who knows, but here is what i believe, if jovan belcher didn't possess a gun, he and kasndra perkins would both be alive today. mike huckabee rewrote what he said but attributed tos could stas. he went on several minutes trying to make the case for gun control saying that if we had only had handgun control, then this crime never would have happened. of course, bob costas never mentioned the phrase gun control, you heard him, or add voe indicated any change in law on his nbc football show. that is not what he just heard. and every word that mike huckabee and herman cain didn't
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like was actually written by, as bob costas notes, fox sports columnist jason whitlock. when you read the environmental tire tea of jason's piece, which is the first article that i've read about football this year, you can be see that bob costas chose to quote it carefully, specifically leaving out the part on his show the part where jason whitlock does get political and eloquently so here's part of what he did not read in that article. we've come to accept our insanity. we'd prefer to avoid seriously reflecting upon the absurdity of the prevailing notion that the second amendment somehow enhances our liberty rather than threatens it. how many young people have to die senselessly, how many lives have to be ruined before we
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realize that the right to bear arms doesn't protect us from a government equipped with stealth bombers, predator drones, tank, and nuclear weapons? i, for one, played enough football in high school and watched enough football for years after that to be done with football a long time ago but i'm glad that bob costas and jason whitlock aren't done with football. i'm glad they were there this weekend to speak to the football world about the biggest thing that happened in football this weekend. and for mike huckabee, herman cain and the don't blame the gun crowd, mike had this question today in his column. how many home runs would babe ruth hit without a bat?
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have you watched the very last word? it's a segment that we do at 11:01 right after the last word and we post it on our website. here's a sample. >> the real divide in the country is between those who believe that adam and eve rode on dinosaurs. that's the divide. >> i would say we're going to keep talking about it as long as these crazies are in congress and the state houses continue to push this stuff. >> i think i'm probably resting at about, i don't know, 55, if you include the botox. >> you gave away 35 and still had another 55? >> something like that. >> i had the feeling, i just had this feeling that this is the longest you've ever discussed porn in public.
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>> i think, you know what, wait for it. >> the very last word was created by the brilliant sarah muller who is the mastermind of our web presence. take a bow, sarah. you want to say hi to your mom or anyone? >> hi, mom. >> maybe you want to say hi to your husband, too. you know how they get on twitter, too, if they think you are not seeing someone. >> hi, husband. >> you better say his name or they won't think that you have a husband. >> got it. hi, mark. >> good idea. it's probably better not to use his real name. let's hear it for sarah muller, ladies and gentlemen, the woman who taught me how to tweet. sarah shot, edited, and posted all the very last words as well as managing everything else we do online, which meant she never got to see her husband mark until we hired this guy to take
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over the very last word. america, meet evan, you better say hi to your mom, too. she's watching. >> hi, mom. love you. >> and i think you better say hi to your significant other. >> well, i'm not married. >> i'm trying to help you out with this twitter thing. >> thanks, lawrence. i think i'll be okay. >> you can handle it? all right. here is how i met evan and, by the way, it's exactly how some of you met evan. >> this is africa. this is a country in africa called malawi. this is a school, this is a classroom. there are no desks. here are some children in pain from sitting on the dirt floor for eight hours a day and here is one being told that the earth goes around the sun. here is where i'm telling you that learning is like a mountain. it's hard at first to climb, harder for some but once you reach the peak it becomes self-perpetuating, transformative, on and on for the rest of your life. here are the desks and what they look like. here are how many children usually sit at one.
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here are how many children will sit at your desk in their lifetime. here is the limit of what someone can do when they love to learn. >> that's what evan did last year when i told you about the progress with the kind fund, kids in need of desks. he told people about it and did it in such a strikingly creative way that as soon as i saw it, i said, why isn't that guy working here? and now is he. that's how much we pay attention to you and your online comments and your tweets, because we know that plenty of you have better ideas than we do and better ways of saying things than i do. so keep watching msnbc and get a job offer. well, it's not like it's never happened. now, i'm going to ask you a favor. i'm going to ask you to do what evan did. no, you don't have to make a video about k.i.n.d. i just want you to tell someone about it. now, please feel free to tell as many people as you can in as many ways as you can but the
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favor i'm asking is that you just tell one person. just one. your daughter, your grandmother, your roommate, anyone of any age anywhere. if you tell a 7-year-old boy, he probably won't figure out a way to contribute to k.i.n.d., but plenty of them have. we showed you the elementary school stud nent new jersey last engineer who raised $6,273 for k.i.n.d. but most importantly, there are little boys just like him in africa who sit on dirt floors or broken cement floors in their classrooms and he will know that there are workers in malawi who are able to feed their families because they are building desks for those kids who are sitting on those floors. if you see a little girl making her christmas wish list tomorrow, you can help her perspective a bit by telling her
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that when our trucks arrived delivering desks, it's as if santa's sleigh landed in the school yard. >> the desk delivered at this school, that's christmas for these kids. christmas comes on december 25th and pretty much nothing happens in their lives. when a desk is delivered to them at the school, that is christmas. you have made that day, you have made their year, you have made their lives. >> now, i know there are many deserving charitable causes for us to consider, needs close to home, just one example, staten islanders who have contributed to k.i.n.d. have enough to contend with in rebuilding the island and i'll be going back there this week, in fact. but if we all just tell someone about the k.i.n.d. fund this year, i'm sure we'll be able to
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continue building the desks for $65 each. costs have gone up a lot in the last year thanks to skyrocketing fuel prices. no contribution is too small. if one person contributes a few dollars, then a few other people will contribute a few more dollars and then soon two or three kids will be sitting at this desk in a malawi classroom and the workers who make these desks will still have jobs and their families will still have food. our website links to unicef for contributions online or you can call 800-4unicef. i'm one of those people who doesn't want or need things for christmas which is why some people have purchased these desks in my name as a christmas gift gift to me and the unicef form allows you